The 10th Schedule of the Constitution or the anti-defection law, which has failed to effectively check defections, has also stifled legislative debate and “it is high time it is rebooted,” said Harish Narasappa, co-founder, Daksh, a civil society organisation working on measuring political and judicial performance. “If a member resigns from the House, it is meaningless for the person to recontest in 3 months. The law needs to include a ban on such members from recontesting polls for a certain period of time. The law was brought in at a different time, and since then, our politics has debased further and the law needs to keep pace,” he said.
On the other hand, issuing of whip for voting on all legislative business in the House has stifled legislative debate and independent thinking among legislators, also a consequence of the anti-defection law, he said. “A reboot of the law, while it has to include stringent penal clauses for defection, should also free up legislative debate,” he said.
